


heaven is the arms that hold us

by hellebored



Series: i'll see you with your laughter lines [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Light Angst, References to Prostitution, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27964814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellebored/pseuds/hellebored
Summary: Finnick and Annie's wedding night.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Series: i'll see you with your laughter lines [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999978
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	heaven is the arms that hold us

**Author's Note:**

> _heaven is the arms that hold us  
>  long before we go  
> if you're there when the world comes to gather me in  
> if you're there  
> i will be blessed. ([x](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0_LERUW4jYQ))_

The maze of hallways in Thirteen are quiet when Finnick and Annie stumble into their newly-assigned compartment: it's late, past normal curfew, and for a moment the only sound in the room is Annie's rustling silk dress and their heavy breathing. Finnick isn't sure _why_ they'd decided to run down that last hallway, but at least the evening guard they'd passed along the way had looked amused.

Finnick lets his head fall back against the door with a groan. "My _feet_."

Annie giggles. "I know. Honestly I think I would've been there all night if it wasn't for you charming our way out the door."

"My charm does have its uses," Finnick says, waggling his eyebrows as he bends down to untie his shoes.

"Your charm's _trouble_ ," Annie retorts fondly. "But I happen to think you're worth all the trouble in the world, so that's alright."

Finnick smiles by reflex as he stands, hiding a pang of guilt. He'd weighed her wellbeing against the future of the rebellion, gambling on her freedom and her life, and she'd paid terribly for it. In spite of Annie's insistence there's nothing to forgive, _all the trouble in the world_ doesn't even begin to account for what he's done.

Annie must pick up on something in his expression. She steps close and wraps her arms around him with her head under his chin.

"Finnick," she begins in a strangely wavering voice, and then stops. Pressing her forehead against his chest, she inhales and lets it out slowly before going on. "If I'd known tonight was waiting for me on the other side, I would've spent every day in that cell singing."

Blinking rapidly, Finnick kisses the crown of her head through her veil. He knows some things from her and some things from Jo: enough to get a decent picture of what it had been like. Enough to know she'd spent every day half-starved and terrified instead, and came back to him with a persistent ringing in one ear from being thrown against the wall.

He should've been in that cell, not her.

But then he'd likely be dead, and Snow would know everything he knows, and Annie wouldn't be standing here in a dress the color of her eyes, hair all tangled from twirling, veil askew. She'd probably be dead too.

Stepping back, Annie brushes her thumb over the space between Finnick's brows and the creases at the corners of his mouth, smoothing out the lines as if she can smooth out his heavy thoughts, and then raises up on her toes and presses a brief kiss against his cheek.

No place for guilt or sadness tonight. He can do that.

When Annie grasps his hands and draws him down the hall, it takes him a moment to realize what she's doing: instead of going straight she leads him in a tight circle, moving slowly through a cramped hallway that somehow still manages to be wider than the one in Finnick's previous compartment.

"Not done dancing yet?" he teases.

"I was thinking one more round, if your feet can handle it?"

"I can always get new feet," Finnick says reasonably, and Annie laughs.

"I'd give you mine, but I think they'd be a bit small."

"And you'd be footless, so—" Finnick hoists her up and hooks an elbow below her knees, spinning in a fast circle while she yelps in surprise, "—I'd have to carry you everywhere like _this_."

He staggers when he stops turning, dizzy, and Annie grins. "No, I'd just take yours—"

Finnick narrows his eyes. "You've been trying to steal my feet all along, haven't you?"

It's hard to school his mouth into a stern line when she's giggling, and even harder when it sets her off every time he blinks at her in slow accusation, but he tries.

"Foot thief," he mutters, shaking his head. "You're lucky you're the light of my life."

Finnick carries her to the bunk and places her on the edge. Unlike his last bed, it's actually big enough for two people. Apparently the ability to roll over without waking one's partner is the sort of luxury afforded to officially-sanctioned couples only, which feels about as rigidly traditionalist as Finnick might expect from a militarized society living in underground bunkers.

Kneeling on the floor, he slips off Annie's shoes and gives her a lopsided grin before playfully kissing the toes of one stockinged foot and then the other.

"Gross," Annie says, yanking her toes under the hem of her dress and wrinkling her nose. "No kissing sweaty socks."

Finnick doesn't mention he's kissed more unpleasant things. Instead, he rises up on his knees, a hand resting on either side of her lap, and bats his lashes innocently as he leans forward.

"No? Should I give you a sweaty-sock kiss instead?"

" _Gross_ ," Annie repeats, dodging away from his puckered lips by turning her face side to side. "Go wash your mouth! Ew, go— _mmph_ —"

Finnick smothers her protest in a sloppy open-mouthed kiss, and Annie topples backward onto the bed and takes him with her: he throws a hand up against the wall just in time to avoid smacking his forehead, resulting in a _thwack_ so loud that Annie laughs until there are tears in her eyes, no doubt thinking of residents in the compartment on the other side of the wall.

He can still feel Annie's chest shaking as he settles over her. This time, when Finnick lightly brushes the surface of her lips with his, she tilts up into the kiss, hand curling under the back of his high collar and stroking the nape of his neck.

After a few minutes her movements grow languid, her breathing slow and relaxed beneath him.

Finnick exhales in amusement against the corner of her mouth. Dancing for hours seems to have caught up to her sooner rather than later. "Love, you still with me?"

Annie blinks, coming back to herself from whatever soft hazy place she'd been floating in, and as she does a blush creeps across her face.

"Think I got a little too comfortable," she says, smiling sheepishly, and props herself up to sitting. "Help me with my dress?"

Only a few months ago it would've caused an uproar of speculation in the Capitol to discover the bride of famous lover Finnick Odair had nearly fallen asleep at the very start of their wedding night. Now he's been branded a traitor, and for the first time in his adult life no one will be digging for details about what happens in his bedroom.

Sitting on the edge of the bunk, Finnick runs a hand along the band of Annie's veil until he finds the pins holding it in place. He lifts it away, not missing how she exhales in relief when his fingertips rub over the places the pins had pulled her scalp.

When he's done, he turns his attention to her dress: for a moment he simply admires the way it drapes, how beautifully it frames Annie's body even though it was clearly tailored to Katniss's frame.

Cinna's work. Somehow Plutarch had managed to find someone with actual talent in addition to an admirable willingness to quietly martyr himself. Cinna would've been pleased to see one of his dresses worn in a wedding that defied the Capitol, but all Finnick feels when he thinks about Annie's joy being televised for propaganda is tired.

A line of dyed-pearl buttons down the back conceals the dress's zipper. Finnick considers for a moment, imagining Annie standing in front of him as the fabric falls off her shoulders to the floor. It feels like someone else's fantasy, a script he might've once been expected to follow.

Instead, he nudges her onto her stomach, head pillowed on her hands, while he unfastens the dress and lays it open all the way to the small of her back.

Annie sighs as Finnick's hands move over her shoulderblades in a familiar pattern. Even with earplugs that make crowded areas in the base more bearable, most nights she comes back to him with a headache from the constant strain of trying not to fold in on herself. Working the knots from her neck and shoulders became a bedtime ritual out of necessity.

Annie turns her head and squints at him with one green eye. "You know what this does to me. It's not my fault for passing out if... you keep..."

She trails off as Finnick's fingers dip into her dress and cup her breasts, gently squeezing before drawing away.

"You were saying?" he says, maybe a _little_ obnoxiously smug, and grins at her answering huff.

He works his way down to more sensitive pressure points, thumbs kneading into her lower back. His hands push her hips into the mattress in a strong, steady rhythm, and he suspects it's good even before the sounds she makes confirms it.

Slipping a hand under the fabric, Finnick gently squeezes the curve of her ass through her underwear, enjoying her sharp inhale, how she fits against his palm. He trails a pointer finger between her legs, following the edge of her panties down the inside of one thigh and then the other, and by the time he pulls his hand out of her dress she's shifting her hips in a way that makes him hard.

He's wearing too much. While he unbuttons his suit-jacket, Annie scoots to the edge of the bed and slips out of her dress and underwear with charmingly predictable straightforwardness. The concept of putting on a show—either for her benefit or for someone else's—does nothing for her: the first and only time Finnick seriously tried, she'd laughed and treated it like a game. _I already know what you look like, Finn._

Finnick still has his pants on when Annie settles naked between his knees and tugs them off along with his socks, leaving him bare. Her fingers wrap around him: Finnick groans, twitching in her hand, and a lacy flush spreads over Annie all the way down to her breasts, her body visibly coloring with sympathetic heat.

Even after several weeks with her back, it still feels overwhelming to be intimate: knowing he won't have to leave in a few weeks, a month, and fuck whoever pays the most for the privilege of owning his body. Won't have to let them put their hands on him while he pretends he wants it.

No one else will touch him like this, not ever again.

The rush of relief makes it hard to last, and after a short while he stills Annie's hand and pulls her up, steadying her while she straddles his lap. The dull green remnants of bruises on her hips—from trying to sleep curled on a hard floor—don't hurt anymore, but he can't bear to grasp her there, so he rests his hands on her waist instead.

"Oh," she exhales as she guides him in and sinks down, soft and wet and _Annie_ : just Annie, Annie who feels like home.

Finnick loses himself in it, the sharp, painful jut of her hipbones as she rocks against him, her thin high sounds of encouragement. Slick heat sends jolts of pleasure through his cock, such a good feeling when it comes without self-loathing or shame.

He puts a hand between her thighs and strokes his thumb against her clit, following the movement of her body so she can't get away from it, can't prevent the need from building up until it makes her lose all sense of rhythm and writhe against his hand.

"You're my husband," Annie says, pulling Finnick's forehead down to hers. "You're my husband. _Finnick_ —"

The words hit him and for a moment he can't breathe. A revolving door of faces have dirtied every endearment he can think of, sweetheart and honey and darling and love and all the variations of his own name, but no one's ever called him _that_. No one but Annie, just Annie.

It builds inside—a fragile, hot triumph at the things they couldn't take—until he's holding it back by the barest thread, waiting for Annie's wordless cry to let go.

Annie slumps against him, sweat-slicked and suddenly shivering. Through a warm euphoric haze Finnick manages to get them both under the covers, rubbing Annie's back while she comes down.

She's never been difficult to read. Judging by the heaviness in her face she won't stay awake long, which is probably just as well. She might not look as wrecked as Jo but the fatigue that's plagued her since her rescue makes everything else harder to handle.

Finnick knows what people think of Annie. He's seen their pitying looks, the way they ignore and dismiss her opinions because her behavior when she's overwhelmed makes them uncomfortable. They don't know what she's like when she feels safe. How insightful and funny she is, how clever, when she can form a complete thought without someone in earshot making a callous comment about horrors they'll never understand.

Once all of this is over he's taking her home. She'll be able to breathe again, and nothing will force him to leave, and the things they've had to do won't weigh so heavy.

"Did you know you're my wife?" Finnick asks, affectionately brushing a thumb over the tip of Annie's nose. She's so much more than that. There isn't a word for all she is, brave and bright and true.

Annie's face scrunches. "Is _that_ what we signed?"

She's already giggling before Finnick starts tickling her.

∆


End file.
